Court grants bail to N Vasu in Sabarimala gold theft case

KOLLAM: The Kollam Vigilance Court has granted statutory bail to former devaswom board president and commissioner N Vasu, jailed in the Sabarimala gold theft case. He was granted bail with conditions. Vasu got bail by citing the Special Investigation Team (SIT)'s failure to file a chargesheet.

Vasu approached the court seeking bail after the 90-day remand period had expired. Five have been released on bail so far out of the accused arrested in the Sabarimala gold theft case. The first accused Unnikrishnan Potty, Murari Babu, S Sreekumar and Sudheesh Kumar were earlier granted statutory bail.

Executive officer’s letter to the board on February 16, 2019, stated that door frames to be handed over to Unnikrishnan Potty was gold-plated. This was corrected and changed to copper sheets. This alteration has now turned crucial against Vasu. The special investigation team has found that Vasu played a crucial role in the conspiracy to hand over the gold-plated sheets to Potty as copper. The board decided to hand over the sheets to Potty on Vasu's recommendation.

The board meeting on March 19 approved the letter given by Vasu on February 26, 2019 and decided to hand over the sheets to Potty. Accordingly, the gold sheets were smuggled based on the order given by Devaswom Secretary S Jayashree. It has been found that the gold sheets in Sabarimala were first recorded as copper in a letter given by the then Devaswom Commissioner N Vasu for the approval of the board. A similar fraud was later repeated in the case of the Dwarapalaka idol sheets.